Eleven journalists covering the six Coral Triangle countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste attended the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium in Cairns, Australia on July 9-13, 2012 as part of a media fellowship program.

The fellowship program, organized by US-based communications organization Seaweb, is intended to enhance media coverage of marine and ocean issues by connecting journalists with leading scientific experts and helping them understand the latest developments in the field. The fellows were responsible for 1,600 media uptakes from the symposium. They also joined Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) officials and scientists at a dialogue organized by USAID’s US CTI Support Program on July 11, 2012 to discuss various ways on how CTI can work with the media to better communicate its messages to the public. USAID's Coral Triangle Support Partnership, WWF, The Kingfisher Foundation and the Pacific Island Countries Participation Fund supported the fellowship program.

Meanwhile, Coral Triangle generated more than 600 news articles in print and online media as well as interest in television and radio news organizations at the 12th ICRS. The majority of the news coverage focused on the threats to the Coral Triangle’s reefs stated in the USAID-supported Reefs at Risk Revisited in the Coral Triangle report as well as solutions put forward by the Coral Triangle Initiative – the multilateral partnership of six countries in the Coral Triangle supported by USAID through its US CTI Support Program. Some of the international news coverage includes the following clips from the BBC News,  The Australian, Jakarta Post, Huffington Post, Interpress News Service, Agence France Presse, and the Philippine Daily Inquirer among others. 

Photo Caption:  Journalists covering the Coral Triangle attend the 12th ICRS in Cairns, Australia. To find out more about the fellows. follow this link to the Seaweb website.